1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a clothing dryer and, more particularly, to a clothing dryer comprising a connecting unit for use in the cleaning of a hot air outlet duct that guides hot air to the outside.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, a clothing dryer is designed forcibly to blow hot air into a drying tub to dry wet laundry contained in the drying tub. Such a clothing dryer is provided with a heater and blowing fan forcibly to circulate the hot air to the drying tub, thereby drying the laundry.
A conventional clothing dryer, as disclosed in Korean Patent Registration No. 10-446764, comprises a housing provided at its front side with a door, a cylindrical drying tub longitudinally disposed in the housing, a hot air inlet duct having one end connected to a rear side of the drying tub to introduce hot air into the drying tub, a heater mounted in the hot air inlet duct to change outside air to the hot air, a hot air outlet duct to discharge the hot air, coming from the drying tub, to the outside under the operation of a blowing fan mounted therein, a hot air guiding section to guide the hot air from the drying tub to the hot air outlet duct, a lattice-patterned grill member mounted at the top of the hot air guiding section as a partition wall between the drying tub and the hot air guiding section, and a filter mounted in the hot air guiding section to remove impurities, such as dust, lint, etc., from the hot air passing through the guiding section.
In the case of the conventional clothing dryer configured as stated above, however, if a flow rate of the hot air, passing through the drying tub, is excessively high, the hot air fails to sufficiently transfer its heat to laundry contained in the drying tub and thus is discharged to the outside at high temperature, resulting in a waste of heat. Therefore, the blowing fan provided in the clothing dryer must have a predetermined blowing force to provide the hot air with a flow rate suitable to contact with the laundry for a sufficient time.
Another problem of the conventional clothing dryer is that minute impurities, such as dust, lint, etc., not captured by the filter, are accumulated in the hot air outlet duct with the passage of time, thereby reducing the flow rate of the hot air discharged via the hot air outlet duct.
Although it is preferable to remove the impurities accumulated in the hot air outlet duct using a blowing air, since the blowing force of the blowing fan provided at the conventional clothing dryer is set only to dry the laundry contained in the drying tub, it is difficult to discharge the impurities adhered to the inner peripheral surface of the hot air outlet duct to the outside with such a blowing force.